Goals of Monetary Policy
- High employment
Frictional unemployment is the time period between jobs when a worker is searching for, or transitioning from one job to another. Unemployment beyond frictional unemployment is classified as unintended unemployment.
For example, structural unemployment is a form of unemployment resulting from a mismatch between demand in the labour market and the skills and locations of the workers seeking employment. Macroeconomic policy generally aims to reduce unintended unemployment.
Keynes labeled any jobs that would be created by a rise in wage-goods (i.e., a decrease in real-wages) as involuntary unemployment:
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- Men are involuntarily unemployed if, in the event of a small rise in the price of wage-goods relatively to the money-wage, both the aggregate supply of labour willing to work for the current money-wage and the aggregate demand for it at that wage would be greater than the existing volume of employment.
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- —John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money p11
- Price stability;
Inflation is defined either as the devaluation of a currency or equivalently the rise of prices relative to a currency.
Since inflation lowers real wages, Keynesians view inflation as the solution to involuntary unemployment. However, "unanticipated" inflation leads to lender losses as the real interest rate will be lower than expected. Thus, Keynesian monetary policy aims for a steady rate of inflation.
- Economic growth
Economic growth can be enhanced by investment in capital, such as more or better machinery. A low interest rate implies that firms can loan money to invest in their capital stock and pay less interest for it. Lowering the interest is therefore considered to encourage economic growth and is often used to alleviate times of low economic growth. On the other hand, raising the interest rate is often used in times of high economic growth as a contra-cyclical device to keep the economy from overheating and avoid market bubbles.
- Interest rate stability
- Financial market stability
- Foreign exchange market stability
- Conflicts among goals
Goals frequently cannot be separated from each other and often conflict. Costs must therefore be carefully weighed before policy implementation.
Read more about this topic: Central Bank
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